Well, I'm not fond of Google and I'm not willing to run it's proprietary code. I'd pay for the video hosting service but I'm actively avoiding Google in my life

Well, I'm not fond of Google and I'm not willing to run it's proprietary code. I'd pay for the video hosting service but I'm actively avoiding Google in my life and would rather avoid giving it money. I also don't like ads and tracking. I'd normally boycott a Google service but YouTube is where the content is (network effect). These alternative frontends at least avoid part of the tracking (ads are already taken care of by uBlock Origin anyway) and the non-free Javascript code. With respect to the business model, I don't feel especially guilty, Google has way too much money and power and I'd rather have an unsustainable YouTube replaced by a federation of PeerTube instances with a power diluted across these instances. These alternative frontends could be seen as a temporary, partial solution while YouTube is up. On the technical side, they are way easier on underpowered devices than YouTube proper, including the PinePhone.